


Picking up the Pieces

by ifyouwereamelody



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Smut, Zutara Drabble December 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27922006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouwereamelody/pseuds/ifyouwereamelody
Summary: The room is in chaos; a muddle of empty bottles and puzzle pieces here, a skewed lampshade there...‘Everything okay?’Katara spins towards the door, and there he is. Shirtless. Because she’s wearing his shirt.Memories of the night before come back to Katara in fragments. God, they really messed up that jigsaw puzzle.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 246
Collections: ZK Drabble December 2020





	Picking up the Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Zutara Drabble December for the prompt Little Pieces, but spiralled way past the drabble stage. Oops. 
> 
> Posting this separately from my ZKDD collection because that one is rated M and here I come with my first ever E-rated fic (eek). So go Easy on me, y'all (that's what the E stands for).
> 
> Prompt: Little Pieces
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

The courier offers her nothing but a raised brow when she answers the door, his eyes holding deliberately and mercifully on her face as she signs for the parcel that he’s holding out before he backs away with a smirked _good morning_ and disappears down the path.

Katara groans as she throws the door shut, setting the parcel down and moving quickly through to the living room so that she can run inventory on last night’s damages.

The place is in chaos; a muddle of empty bottles and puzzle pieces here, a skewed lampshade there, and — _shit, that’s where it went_ — her discarded dress flung carelessly into the waiting fronds of the potted fern in the corner.

 _He kisses her, finally_ kisses _her, and with that it’s like every breath in her body has been given up to him. His mouth is demanding and desperate, his tongue running along the seams of her lips and curling against her own, and_ fuck _, she feels like a goddamned teenager but how long has it been since she was kissed like this, with this kind of roiling, head-spinning need?_

The mirror above the fireplace gleams knowingly at her in the morning light, and Katara scowls as she looks her reflection up and down. She’s still wearing last night’s mascara, her hair has been teased to an indescribable frizz, there’s a dark, tender mark at the spot where her neck curves into her shoulder...

Add in the fact that she’s wearing his shirt and, yes, she looks like someone who’s been thoroughly, messily fucked.

_She fumbles for the hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head and flinging it blindly away as his hands skim over her waist, back, ribs, brushing light and teasing across an eager, peaked nipple through the lace of her bra. A strangled kind of whine escapes her, her head falling back, and then his lips are on her neck, nipping a path from ear to collarbone before he presses his mouth against her and sucks a bruising souvenir into her skin._

‘Everything okay?’

Katara spins towards the door, and there he is. Shirtless. Because she’s wearing his shirt.

‘Um...’

 _His body is... God,_ indescribable _, lean and strong and only getting more and more heated under her touch. He groans low and deep in his throat as her fingers trace lines across his chest, his grip on her tightening, hips rocking up against hers._

‘Katara?’

‘Yes! Yeah, sorry, I—’ She plucks lamely at the fabric of the shirt that hangs off her shoulders. ‘The doorbell went and this was the only thing I could find in a rush.’

‘No, no, that’s— That’s fine.’

Zuko clears his throat and looks away, pushing the hair back from his face as he takes in the state of the living room.

‘Wow, we, uh— We really messed up that jigsaw, huh?’

And it’s so random, so colloquial as they stand there in all their undone, morning-after awkwardness, that it startles a laugh out her.

_Her hands fist in his hair as he strokes long, languid passes at the wetness between her legs with his tongue, slow and sinful and utterly fucking maddening whilst she gasps and arches up off the table above him._

‘Yeah, I probably just need to accept that I’m never going to find all the pieces. Guess that’s what happens when you sweep everything off a table. The movies never show the whole _tidying up_ part, do they, so you never really think about it too much, but turns out someone’s got to clear everything up after it’s been thrown on the floor.’

She’s rambling, totally rambling to her best friend who _holy fuck_ she had _sex_ with last night, and— and God, not just regular old sex, either. Mind-blowing, knee-weakening, flashbacks-coming-to-her-in-ragged-little-pieces sex that’s probably going to haunt her for the rest of her fucking _life_ , and rambling is the only way she seems to be able to deal with it right now.

But Zuko just snorts quietly and takes a few steps into the room, kneeling down next to the coffee table.

‘Better get started, then.’

 _His arm wraps around her hips, the hum of his laughter sending shockwaves through her as she lets out a huff of frustration at the way she’s been trapped against him — now all she can do it take it, take it as he keeps laving that relentless torment into her, as he presses and curls his fingers inside her, as he sucks just that bit too gently at her clit and oh fuck she can’t_ breathe _..._

‘It wasn’t just the alcohol, you know.’

The words are murmured so low that at first Katara’s not sure she’s heard him right, doesn’t dare believe it. She stalls, sits back abruptly on her heels with her hands full of puzzle pieces and stares at him as he continues to scan the floor.

‘What?’

A muscle tightens in his jaw, and he lifts his head, and his gaze is burnished and heavy on her.

_‘Zuko.’_

_He’s already watching her, has been watching her this whole time with eyes that pin her down just as much as his arms do; he doesn’t pull away as he answers, and his breath brushing against the soaked slickness of her skin sends her spasming._

_‘Yes?’_

_She’s never begged for anything before in her life, but—_

_‘Please. Zuko,_ please. _’_

‘It wasn’t just because of the alcohol. It wasn’t— I wanted you.’ He clears his throat again, swallows, frowns a little. ‘I’ve wanted you for... _Fuck_ , Katara, for ages. Years, you know, I just—’

His voice is hoarse, uncertain as he tails off. He’s looked away from her again, his fingers trailing across the carpet, and the frown is still etched across his forehead, like maybe he regrets having said anything.

The thought of him regretting this — _any_ of this — is unbearable.

‘Me too.’

It seems to take him a second to absorb, and then his gaze is jerking back up to meet hers, his face laden with questions and surprise and a buzzing, cautious kind of hope that makes her chest ache.

‘You—’

And she pushes herself up onto her knees, pushes herself in closer towards him, taking hold of his shoulders to make sure he’s looking right at her as she speaks.

‘Zuko. Me too.’

This time, _she_ kisses _him_.

_Time starts to come in fragments._

_He lets her underwear slide back into place as she stands on unsteady legs and pulls him through to her bedroom._

_She pushes his shirt off his shoulders, brushes her fingers low against the plane of his abdomen as he kicks off his pants, and then his cock is hot and hard in her hand. The way he tenses, the curse that slips from his lips as she strokes him... She’s shaking; a quivering, vibrating knot of desire._

_He hovers over her, forehead pressed hard against hers as his hands find their way around every curve her body has to offer, tugging her hair, squeezing her ass, pinching her nipples as his cock nudges between her legs. She whimpers, actually_ whimpers, _high-pitched and needy in a way that any other time would have her cringing in embarrassment. But she’s too far gone, too immersed in the urgency of how close he is to being inside her to think about anything else and then—_

 _Shit,_ and then _—_

_There is a moment, as he presses into her and she forgets how to draw air into her lungs, where their eyes meet and everything just... holds. Where the seconds draw out, and the burning in her eases to a kind of humming, all-consuming glow with the intensity of his stare. He feels right. Real._

_Then, all at once, the fire comes blazing back, and suddenly she’s panting against his neck at the pressure, the friction, the mind-bending pleasure of it all as he moves over her, cataloguing her cries and finding miniscule adjustments in the angle of his hips until every thrust brings him up against_ something _that leaves her wrecked and shuddering around him. He’s whispering into her hair, broken bits of sentences that she can’t quite make out over the sound of skin on skin and the rushing acceleration of her unravelling._

 _‘—wanted this—so fucking beautiful—you make me feel so—want to make you—fuck,_ fuck, _Katara—’_

_The rasp in his voice alone, the way she can hear that he’s just barely hanging on, is almost enough to send her over the edge. She finds one of his hands, presses a breathless kiss to his palm, and guides his fingers down to the place where they’re joined._

_‘Touch me,_ please _, touch—’_

_He doesn’t wait for her to finish her plea, pressing down on her clit as the sharp pitch of his thrusts pushes impossibly higher, and Katara’s vision whites out; her body bows, her thighs clamp tight around his hips, and she falls completely, stunningly to pieces._

_Distantly, she’s aware of Zuko bucking against her, stuttering in his rhythm as the force of her orgasm tips him into his own. They suspend together, riding out the tremors of their release until they’re dropped, boneless and winded, into a wrung-out heap of sweaty, tangled closeness on her bed sheets._

Zuko pulls away, just a little, his fingers toying with a strand of her hair as his eyes search her face.

‘You— You want this? You’re sure?’

She raises an eyebrow.

‘Do I seem like I’m hesitating to you?’

‘No, I don’t mean— It’s just a change, you know? We’ve been friends for so long, I don’t want you to think that—’

‘I want this. I want you, I want— God, Zuko, I want whatever you want to give me.’

His eyes darken, flickering to her lips as his fingers trail from the hair at her shoulder to the top button of her shirt— _his_ shirt. His free hand drops a scattering of puzzle pieces onto the coffee table beside them.

‘So, um... How important is it that we get all these pieces cleared up right this second?’

And Katara laughs, adding her own collection to the pile before wrapping an arm around his shoulders to pull herself in towards him.

‘I think we’ve done enough for now. We can sort out the rest later.’

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhh, after telling myself I would never venture into E-rated writing, here I am on the dark side.
> 
> I am more interested in your feedback than ever for this one, so please let me know what you thought!


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